"[I]t is critically important that the Justice Department is able to complete an unbiased review of the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger,” Klobuchar said. “Given Mr. Barr’s ties to Time Warner, this commitment from Mr. Barr to recuse himself from the Department’s review is necessary.”

Barr, former attorney general under George H.W. Bush, provided sworn testimony in the AT&T-TW court battle in which he took issue with DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim's characterization of a meeting they both attended about the deal.

Barr said of the meeting that Delrahim's version was "inaccurate and incomplete," and that his discomfort at that meeting stemmed from Barr's concerns that "Mr. Delrahim's position about the alleged harms from the merger and his inexplicable...rejection of remedies short of extreme divestitures were the product not of a well-versed substantive analysis, but rather political or other motivation."